Balancing the Mission Checkbook

My last post of 2007 is a few suggestions and recommendations for your leisure time review.

Tucked in the Business section of the Saturday, December 22, 2007 New York Times was a wonderful story, Emerald City of Giving Does Exist, about the Twin Cities’ enviable amount of corporate philanthropy and commitment. I hope you don’t miss this in the flurry of the holidays. We may wish there was even more to go around, but we are the envy of many nonprofit leaders in other cities, and I thank the business community for that.I have three books to suggest. First, I recommend that everyone interested in developing great boards read Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards by Richard Chait, William Ryan, and Barbara Taylor. This book, published in 2005 by BoardSource, starts with the premise that many boards do not really have a problem of performance, they have a problem of purpose. The book will open your eyes and mind to a new way of thinking about board roles and leadership.

The two other books were published in 2007 and offer interesting ideas and thinking on important nonprofit management topics. I’m still reading both of them, so my reviews will wait for another time. Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High Impact Nonprofits by Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant offers an analysis of twelve organizations that the authors selected based on their impact, reputation, and scale. One important finding was that the high impact nonprofits achieved this impact not only through their direct services, but also by deliberately rallying others to the bigger cause through networks.

ROI For Nonprofits: The New Key to Sustainability by Tom Ralser (published by Wiley) offers a detailed study of how to translate the work of nonprofits into the increasingly important frame of venture capital and business. Whatever your personal opinion of this trend, it is here now and it’s worth your while to understand it.

Finally, a few favorite blogs to read next year:

• Mission-Based Management: Smart, interesting, and useful management perspective
• Gift Hub: Incredibly timely and interesting references, links, and thoughts on philanthropy
• Stanford Social Innovation Review: In-depth analysis and ideas, requires some time to read and consider.
• Nonprofit Technology Blog: Even if you’re not a tech person, we all need to pay attention to trends and new uses.
• Nonprofit Accounting Boot Camp: How can I resist a regular blog about nonprofit accounting issues?
• Give & Take from The Chronicle of Philanthropy: The editors read all the blogs and compile interesting posts in one place – a timesaver.

Cheers, and Happy New Year to you all!